


this time for sure

by heixicanadragon



Series: District 7 'Verse [1]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amputation, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Female Character of Color, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Kissing, LGBTQ Character of Color, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Nonbinary Character, Other, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character of Color, POV Nonbinary Character of Color, Past Violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scars, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, all your faves are brown, lots of kissing because when you're about to die what else can you do, racelifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:01:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1451293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heixicanadragon/pseuds/heixicanadragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for the prompt "Value me: 'One character telling another how they feel about them.'" for District 7, an HTTYD/THG au remix for the characters Astrid and Hiccup.</p><p> </p><p>"It wasn’t just the added stress of knowing that she was about to die. She knew that stress intimately. The increased frequency and intensity of her flashbacks, of night terrors that she couldn’t wake from and nightmares that she could, these were all familiarly distressing, but more disturbingly, her mental state seemed to be deteriorating.</p><p>Something felt more fragile this time around. She was more vulnerable. It was like she had something more to lose.</p><p>...</p><p>'I’ve got to save her. Somehow. But I can’t be close to her this time. For her good, and for mine.' A hot chill shuddered through them at the memory of Astrid’s strong hands on their shoulders, pushing them before her. 'No matter how much I want to.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Astrid smoothed her pant legs, voluminous and highly patterned in a thin silk thickly dotted with green and yellow—“It’s a ‘tribute’ to the forest’s canopy in sunlight,” Cinna had said, wincing at the pun even as he’d said it, but he’d  _had_  said it, Astrid had thought grumpily at the time, while he’d shaken the speckled jumpsuit patterned with tree-spangled sun in her direction—

Astrid shook her head and made herself stop rubbing her hands over her legs, tearing her eyes away from the beckoning pattern of her clothes. She needed to concentrate on the task at hand. 

—but the sparkling shards of light and the softly glowing greens and yellow still beckoned, reaching for her attention like gently waving branches—always beckoning at the edges of her consciousness—how she missed her forests—the slightly stale, lightly perfumed air blowing little tendrils of hair at the back of her neck a cruel reminder that the breath of trees were far from her—the potted plants and manicured indoor gardens were a mockery of where she had come from—sometimes she suspected it was purposefully placed around her quarters, to taunt her with the loss of her woods and ferns and mosses and the gentle undulating hillocks and scattered lost boulders that all lay tangled in the glacial debris fields carved out between the mountains—the passing work of tens of thousands of years mocked by the threatening spare emptiness of pruned southern shrubs bearing no fruit, only tender leaves, irrigated by mist pumped through hoses—

Her mind wandered until anger jolted her into some sort of coherency. Focus. The whole thing was a mockery. Purely decorative, dependent on unseen forces, completely artificial, constructed, pruned, and placed where it did not belong. Just like what they’d done to her. To… nearly every tribute.

A voice was speaking. She needed to listen, decipher what was going on, what was needed.

She needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

"…Miss Hofferson?" A stylist sitting close by, but not one she could recognize, nervously repeated her name yet again. Astrid had no idea what had come before in the conversation or what had prompted this questioning beyond what must be her very obvious inattention. She felt the blood drain away from her face just as steadily as the increase in the pace of her heart.  _This is not a safe place,_  her brain intoned unnecessarily.  _Fuck, I know that._  She tried to swallow but her tongue was dry as ash.  _C’mon, Astrid. This is a battle just as dangerous as the ones that go on in the Arena._  All of it. Everything was the Games now, which meant that nothing was a game. 

She was so tired of hyper-vigilance.

Surviving that first Games hadn’t done anything but prolong the suffering of being a target of the Capitol, of living under constant supervision, even when she was at home in District 7. Even at what passed for “home” now, it was an increasingly constricted life, and more so back in the Capitol, squeezed and processed and packaged for the elites’ entertainment and the masses’ instruction… enlightenment… warning…

She groaned inwardly as she finally looked up and realized that the whole room of stylists, trainers, and dietitians were expectantly waiting for a response. Some sort of answer to a question she hadn’t heard. A few faces of pity and concern were drowned out by the overwhelming sense of the room’s combined amusement and frustration at her. Too many tapping feet, drumming fingers, raised eyebrows.

“—I—I’m sorry. What was the question?” Her answer only arched more eyebrows and elicited a derisive sigh from more than one of her audience.

 _Everything is a trap. Even the clothes that Cinna makes for me to try to cheer me up with a little piece of home… they aren’t safe. They’re too much, too much like false hope… but I can’t go back. I’m here, stuck in the Capitol. They’re going to finish the job this time, especially if I can’t stay on top of things._  She shook off whatever thoughts of home, of District 7 and its trees and mountains and lakes that had ringed the small forestry lookout post that she had called home, long ago in a different world, and let them fall like dead leaves. They were dead weight that were only going to sap her strength. There was no hope to cling to.  _I’m never going to see them again. Might as well let go._

From behind, a friendly voice lightly accented with Capitol breathy, swoopy tones broke into her thoughts again. “Astrid, they’re just wondering if you have a theme in mind, or some ideas, maybe, of what you’d like to wear this interview circuit.”

She nodded. She’d actually been able to follow that, and it was not only a voice full of actual concern for her, but it was saying things concisely, with a surprising lack of condescension for the scattered, scarred girl who seemingly couldn’t hang on during the meandering currents of a simple conversation. Apparently even a small hint of what was behind her—home—or what was before her—the Games—the Quarter Quell—could make things fade out into blurs of color and muffled sound. 

She nodded again to herself, reminding herself to answer the question. Thankfully, the answer was an easy one. “I really don’t care. Honestly, you all are much better at figuring out what would work best with current fashions and such… I really don’t… tend to follow things like that.” She knew it, she knew her team knew it, they all knew this meeting was mostly a formality, a jab at collaboration with her while they sized her up and made their own plans on how to hide her weaknesses, accentuate their strengths, and exploit whatever vulnerabilities she had for the entertainment of the audience.

Wasn’t as if she had ever had her finger on the pulse of the Capitol. At this point, surviving and keeping her own self from disintegrating was enough to do on her own, much less trying to guess what could give her an advantage in front of audiences whose attention seemed to drift even more regularly than hers did.

She shrugged. “I don’t really have any suggestions. You’ve been a good team over the years. I think I can trust you to choose something that works.”

Astrid tried to keep her face blank at the “tut-tut“‘s and the “oh, we know, darling, leave it to us“‘s that ensued as she turned in her seat, looking for whoever had been kind enough to help her. Her team around her stilled, and the faces in her eye-line went nearly as blank as hers, as if waiting for her reaction, as she turned. The effect gave a sudden expectation that she was turning to find that she’d been cornered into a trap, but the growing sense of horror kept her eyes focused. As unreliable as her body felt to her on most days, at least it seemed able to snap back to functionality when she needed it.

At least she could stay steady enough to stare death in the face.

Because there death stood, leaning against the doorjamb in a high heel and a slim, extended prosthetic, wearing a particularly full knee-length brilliant green skirt splotched with equally bright orange patterns—which shouldn’t have worked together on anyone else, but somehow did on them, and complemented the medium tones of their brown skin like a charm—a soft smile on their face in contrast to the angularity of the arms crossed jauntily in front of their body.

Astrid found herself on her feet and the chair clattering to the ground in the moment that she locked eyes with them. With Hiccup.

"Well, hello to you too, Astrid." They flipped a lock of black hair out of their face— _Black, back to natural colors?_  her racing mind had finally forced out a coherent thought instead of just staring like a deer in the headlights—as they took a step towards her.

"Why are you here, Hiccup?" It didn’t come out as a question. Her claws were out and she didn’t know how to force them back in. She didn’t know if she wanted to.

Hiccup only paused in the step towards her before they let the soft smile fade to a rather good impression of resignation and nearly floated rather than walked to an arm’s length away from her. Astrid forced herself not to take a step back. 

"I heard you got in a couple days ago and thought I should say hi." Hiccup’s affected Capitol accent clung to every word. Astrid’s head began to swim, memories of  laughter ringing in her head, disorienting her. They’d been years younger when she and Hiccup had mocked their stylists in their rare moments alone before the first Games—really, only a few stolen minutes, so long ago—and she had marveled at Hiccup’s talent for mimicry. But now it was like they were purposefully keeping it on, their voice swinging through syllables like they’d grown up here, like they were born to privilege and luxury. And they smelled, well, she didn’t know what they smelled like, something fruity, maybe, but they smelled good, too good, and their makeup was perfect, she now saw, and she couldn’t keep her eyes from roaming all over them. They looked so good. They looked perfect. 

Her stomach roiled. She had never seen them this put-together. So like a Capitolite.

"Hi." It was all she could manage.

They were staring at her, something tightly coiled behind their eyes that she couldn’t read, and she couldn’t look away. A huge rawness in her heart tore itself open again, bleeding a year’s worth of bloody repression.

It’d been almost exactly a year since the last Games, since the time when together they’d mentored two kids who’d… died. Horribly. And she’d blamed Hiccup for that, for designing the trap that had sunk the two children, who had clung together until their last breath of tar. Because Hiccup really had designed it, and had admitted it, and somehow still had blamed the children for falling in.  _Because apparently “only idiots not paying attention would fall for that.”_

The last person that she would have expected to join  _the murderers who had tried to kill us both_  had decided to make a living  _murdering children and laughing about it_  and she had shouted that and more, and worse, at them before she’d finally started weeping uncontrollably in front of them.

Hiccup had not protested at all. Had finally just walked away, leaving her to her ruinous thoughts. Later they’d blown up at her for something unrelated, and she back at them, and then she’d tried to guilt trip them into quitting the Games design job, and  _then_  together they’d slowly ruined whatever had been left between them, but the fault somehow continued to lie squarely between the two of them in a no-man’s land, somewhere between Hiccup’s side for taking the job and  _enjoying_ it and her side for not being able to stop them, or the Capitol, or the deaths of any other Tributes. Not even the ones assigned to her, who had whimpered final shuddering breaths on screens and who lived and died over and over in her nightmares. 

But if Hiccup thought that they could come back and act like nothing was the matter, that they were even on speaking terms with her, much less still her  _friend_ , they had something else coming.

Like a fist to the face.

The thought had flashed through her mind only a millisecond before her knuckles met Hiccup’s cheekbone with a crack.

They staggered under the blow, falling to the marble floor, the stiffly puffed skirt crumpling and crackling underneath them and their prosthetic ringing against the floor somewhat like a gong. Astrid let herself follow through, limbs swinging and settling, dismay at what she’d just done unable to destroy the overwhelming satisfaction that the punch had released into her bloodstream. She felt… relief, relief at having done something, expressed something. Her adrenaline was up, sending her to a familiar place of vibrating energy. The anger hadn’t stopped burning. She wasn’t done yet, but, as awareness of surroundings slowly encroached through the haze, the sinking sensation of her shocked audience forced her decision. They definitely couldn’t hash this reunion out here.

Hiccup was trying to gather themself up off the ground while clutching at their cheek, looking pathetic and shocked, a streak of mascara smeared under their hand, and Astrid couldn’t tell if that stricken expression was for her, her horrified team, or Hiccup’s own benefit, but it pissed her the hell off. Before the impulse could leave, she stalked over to them, leaned over and yanked them up by an arm, and fairly dragged them towards the conference room exit, dispersing dagger-glances to the few who had finally rushed forward stop her or interfere or something— _as if they could do anything to stop me_. She knew what this looked like. What it was.

Stone-cold Astrid Hofferson had finally gone over the edge. It’s only that the Capitol didn’t and  _wouldn’t_ know what that meant.  _Fuck them and the gossip machine. Let them stew over this and_ wonder.

"We’re going to go talk, no need to follow us," she barked over her shoulder before she pushed Hiccup in front of her through the door and slammed it behind both of them.

She grabbed Hiccup’s wrist and marched down the hall until she found a cleaning closet and again shoved them in. She slapped the light control panel on with one hand and shut the door behind her with the other, not caring about the jolt of the slam. Maybe reveling in it a little. The closet smelled strongly of cleaning supplies and the light scent of the oil of the automatic cleaning machines which sat in rows along the walls. It made her eyes smart.

Hiccup was trembling before her, back turned, but they weren’t saying anything yet, which was good, because she needed to say her piece first before she got sidetracked by their sly tongue and fancy looks. Before Hiccup could try to convince her again that they were right and that she was wrong, and futile, and only one weak person, trapped and alone.

 _You’re wrong about me._ The direct approach, then, so that they’d  _know_ that. “You’re completely despicable, you know that?” she growled out. “You sneaky, little… you came into one of my meetings to mess with my head, to fuck with me. You thought I’d just  _forget_ … would just lie down and accept your help after what you’ve done, what you’ve been doing, just because—just because.” She took a deep breath. “‘Cause I’m the wounded, crazy mentor from backwoods District 7 who’s been  _reaped, again,_  and can’t hold it together! So I’ll apparently take any help I can get, from  _anyone.”_

Something told her to stop but she refused. “Even… a fucking Gamemaker. _”_   _‘Cause apparently I’m just that desperate._  She blinked that thought away. It hit too close. She was already breathing too hard, already getting dangerously close to crying. That’s what always happened around Hiccup. They weren’t safe to be around. Not anymore. “Well, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong about me. If you think I can just take you back just like—”

Hiccup cleared their throat and sniffed, a wet, shaky sound that stopped Astrid’s mouth. She backed a step, finding herself against the door as they turned around, their mascara now truly running. They smiled a lopsided little grin that made her stomach clench.

"Oh, Astrid, I’ve missed you." The Capitol accent was gone. They chuckled as they wiped at their face with both hands. "It’s been a long year. Too long of an argument.”

She snorted in anger.  _An argument. So that’s all you think it was._ " Hiccup, did you hear a fucking word I said? You little shit—"

"You’re right." 

She hadn’t heard them say that in years. Astrid found herself blinking in astonishment, searching Hiccup’s face and body language for signs of contradiction, but…

"I said, you’re right." Hiccup was staring defiantly back at her. "You  _were_  right. You are right. You’ve always  _been_  right. Is that what you want to hear? Because I’m willing to say it.”

"Hiccup, stop… stop messing around." 

"I’m not." 

"Then what are you trying to do?"

"I’m trying to stop this stupid, ugly fight that we’ve been having. The one where we’ve not talked in a year because I’ve been a stubborn asshole who’s too clever for their own good. I’m agreeing with you." Their face. Their shitty, pathetic pleading little face that made her want to scream and punch them again. 

"You’re… agreeing with me." She couldn’t keep the dubious tone out of her voice.

"I’m agreeing with you." Completely serious, completely sincere, eyes shining with conviction.

That got her mad again. 

“ _Shit,_ Hiccup!  _Why?_  Why  _now?_  Is it because I’m about to go to my  _death_? So you want to make up with me, play nice, get this shit off your conscience? Before I go back into an Arena that  _you designed?_ " She rubbed at her face, feeling her skin prickle, turning onto her side on the closet door, thoughts racing with further accusations but they were all getting stuck behind her lips at the thought that  _maybe this is actually happening. Maybe they really did change their mind. But fuck, we have no time. And I’m about to die. Fucking_ shit,  _Hiccup, I can’t deal with this on top of everything else._ Astrid’s eyes felt sore from rolling so much in the past few minutes but she did it again anyway, and then snuck another peek out of the corner of her eye at them.

Hiccup, still standing before her, had closed their eyes and begun biting their upper lip, their eyebrows pinched together. They suddenly slumped to a sitting position on the floor, metal leg clanking against a cleaning machine as they gathered their limbs together cross-legged. 

"Why now?" They repeated her question like it had an obvious answer. "I think a big reason is that… I’m going into the Arena, too, and I’d like to be able to go with you."

A weight seemed to squeeze all the breath out of her in one big whoosh of air and Astrid couldn’t keep her footing. She slid, sat down against the door.

"I… I thought that… you’d be… I thought a Designer would be exempt."

"So did I."

“When… I hadn’t heard about this.”

“It was announced yesterday. You were still on the train here. And apparently you’ve not checked the news yet, because you’re still avoiding having anything to do with the Capitol, again.” 

She rolled her eyes at that, but it was true. “So we’re both equally screwed, then.”

"Yep." Hiccup passed a hand over their eyes and laughed, the sound dry as a pine forest in drought. "And I’m a good designer. I came up with some really great ideas this past year, especially in honor of it being a Quell.”

Astrid couldn’t say anything past the growing lump of despair threatening to choke her.

"So yeah, you could say that I screwed us both over." Hiccup audibly gulped. "I’m sorry. I was wrong. You were right. I should have never taken this job. I let the Capitol get to me and manipulate me and I’ve…" They were staring at their hands with an expression Astrid didn’t want to examine too closely. It reminded her too much of her own guilt. "I’m directly responsible for the deaths of at least seventeen children and indirectly involved in the murder every single Tribute who has died since I took the job." They met Astrid’s eyes. "Sometimes I… well, I thought you were a hypocrite for being willing to kill in the Arena but not play along with Capitol gossip games or go to all the fancy parties with me unless you had to."

"I know. You told me that."

"And I rubbed it in your face that I had never killed anyone. Never in those words. But I did. I… I thought I was better than you."

"Trust me, the message came across." 

Hiccup scowled a little. “I was clearly wrong and trying to deflect from how messed up I was being and projecting my problems and my own guilt on you. I was being unfair.”

"Yeah, you did. You were." Astrid couldn’t help but laughing a little, in relief, in recognition of the truth. It felt so indescribably  _good_ to finally hear Hiccup say things like this, freely, in a non-defensive way. Even if it hurt to be reminded of them.

They let out a huff. “I’m trying to apologize, you jerk.”

"Yeah, good job on reminding me about all the horrible things you put me through."

"Yeah, well, I don’t actually like reading off the laundry list of why I suck, either, but I’m doing it anyway."

"You’re such a dork. Add that to your list." Astrid chuckled at the grin that line produced on their face, a growing sense of  _camaraderie?_ _companionship?_  filtering in through their suddenly recognizable style of bickering. They were both smiling at each other, like they hadn’t done in what felt like centuries.  _Are we actually friends now again?_ How the fuck had Hiccup done that? 

_How the fuck had Hiccup done that?_

She stilled, smile dropping, words building up behind her mouth again, and decided just to say them.

"You’re scary, you know? I don’t know how you do it, but you know how to play the game, and you play it well."

Hiccup’s eyes widened. “What game?”

"You know, making people like you, care for you… and conversation… and stuff." She suddenly felt like she had said too much.

They looked confused. “It’s not a game, Astrid. I meant what I said.”

 _But it went too smoothly, didn’t it?_ She got to her feet. “Hiccup, you just manipulated the fuck out of me.” How could they not see that? How had  _she_  not noticed? “You told me what I wanted to hear and how I wanted to hear it and now you’re just expecting me to be on your side. Like everything is fixed!”

Hiccup was staring at her like she was going crazy. Perhaps she was. But her gut was telling her something and she had to listen. 

She took a breath. “I can’t just immediately trust you again. I don’t know what side you’re on. What agenda you have. I don’t know why you want to be my friend again. I don’t know. God knows I want this to be real. Hell, I fell for it for a second there. I almost convinced myself that we could…” She suddenly didn’t know what she’d been almost been convinced of, but it’d been something big… something vaguely dangerous. “And, you know what, it’s not that I don’t accept your apologies as real. I think that you really do understand how boneheaded you’ve been.”

Hiccup rose unsteadily to their feet, grasping at their bodice like their chest was hurting. Maybe it was.

The words kept coming and she let herself say them. “It’s just that… Ugh. We’ve… had problems for a long time. Longer than just this last fight. So you can’t just expect me to…  _forget_.”

"Forget what?" they croaked.

Astrid gestured limply to the space between them. “This. This mess. Whatever it is that we are. That the Capitol’s made us to be.”

Hiccup seemed to wilt, both of their hands digging into their skirt, crumpling the stiff material even further. Their face was a streaming mess, sniffling and crying. “Ok. Fine. Your high-and-mighty-ness.” They sobbed in a breath, letting it out in a huff. “If you’re not able to trust me, fine. I haven’t done anything recently to earn it. I know.”

"It’s just like you, Hiccup! Turning everything to be about you! But  _this_ isn’t just about YOU!” Astrid was almost shouting, feeling something propel her forward. She wanted to wring their neck. She wanted to punch them again, grab them and crush them against a wall, do  _something._ Her hands felt useless and in the way.

"Let me out."

"GO OUT. FEEL FREE TO LEAVE."

"No, you’re blocking the door. Let me out." It came out pleading, weak, and Astrid’s anger suddenly seemed monstrous. Her face flamed with embarrassment, with shame. She was immediately conscious of being so much taller and heavier than them. Of how small and cramped the closet was, of how Hiccup was curling into themself, as if awaiting another blow. Right, because she had literally knocked them off their feet and then dragged them in here by force.

Her heart froze. What was she doing?

"Oh.  _Oh._ Uh, sorry, sorry.” She backed away from the door, making a half turn to give Hiccup more room as they edged forward to leave. The stiff, wide skirt barely brushed a leg of Astrid’s pants as it went by.

They placed a shaky hand on the door handle and looked over their shoulder back at Astrid, who felt like she was going to vibrate out of her skin in discomfort. She stepped back even further, wanting to make the way as clear as possible. If she in this moment could just disappear and let Hiccup escape, she  _would_ —furthermore, if she could avoid seeing the hurt in Hiccup’s expression that she’d caused, she’d jump at the opportunity. 

Of course, just her luck, there would be no such chance. But then, she’d never willingly turned away from her responsibilities.

Hiccup, hunching shoulders in and beginning to turn ashen, had opened the door a crack, but was waiting for her to acknowledge them before they made their exit. She forced herself to meet the brown eyes smeared with tears.

It was one of the few sights left in this world that truly hurt. 

They left, letting the door shut softly. From outside, the clatter of heel and prosthetic on tiled hallway picked up speed as it faded.

_Shit._

All the hollow places in her seemed just as empty as before but coated with sludge, whatever innocence or righteousness she had thought she had left—in the work of a few minutes—revealed to be a lie. Seeing Hiccup look  _that_  crushed and accusatory because of her, because she had acted like… a monster, not a human with any thought or consideration or any kindness.

Maybe she was actually inherently dangerous, like people were saying. Had been saying, since the dreadful first interviews from years ago, and the very obvious implications of the resulting propaganda ads and the official line on her since then leading up to the first Games. The rumors had been proven by her actions, through the ease with which she had killed eight of her fellow Tributes, through the way she couldn’t help hurting people she… cared for. She deserved to go into the Arena. She deserved to die. Stone cold killer. Killed stone cold.

She slowly lay down on the floor of the closet and let herself sob herself into exhaustion and then sleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Hiccup had run back to their room, dodging more than a few former coworkers heading back from the lunch break and other familiar faces that right now they just couldn’t place, not with the way their chest was threatening to turn to stone and their face was streaked with the aftereffects of crying one’s eyes out while wearing copious amounts of makeup. They looked a mess. They felt a mess.

_That did not go like I’d planned._

They felt a failure. Yet again.

Finally arriving to their apartment door, Hiccup felt in a skirt pocket for the key card, fumbled it out from between the stiff skirt pleats and swiped it at the scanner. The door popped open in a neat hiss. Hiccup staggered in, closed the door, flung the card away, and lay down on the floor onto their stomach, crushing the skirt beyond repair. They had to think. They had to— 

Tears streamed down their cheek again, but relief mingled with the frustration and heartache, thankful to be alone, away from prying, curious eyes of snitches from work and camera lenses and game designers, away from the people who would judge them for being an unpresentable wreck of obvious emotion, away from Astrid’s earnest, straightforward, completely unguarded looks of accusation and longing—

Had they imagined that? Those stares that had put a shiver in the very deepest corner of their gut? The way that Astrid had looked up through her eyelashes at them that, despite every attempt at control, had made their jaw clench like a vise?  _No_.  _Definitely real. But, dammit Astrid, you’ve always got to make things harder, don’t you._  Some more naked glances burning like search lamps, even across seemingly private rooms, would definitely get both of them in line for a covert knockoff at least, and if they were to appear on a broadcast together… a dramatic ‘tragic lovers’ storyline ending in a murder or a suicide or both. The way that every attention of Astrid’s suddenly seemed fixed on Hiccup, for better or worse, would definitely trend for worse, if it became public. 

And this was a Quarter Quell, for fuck’s sake. Not even the usual pretense of mercy.

There wasn’t really any other way that Astrid’s previous established characterization could go.  _She’s already too much of a wildcard for them. They won’t know what to do besides kill her off if she starts… being too passionate about something. Especially about me._  

A huger contrast to the beginning of their first Games together Hiccup wouldn’t have been able to think up, even if they’d tried. Not in their wildest teenage dreams. After seemingly ignoring Hiccup for an entire interview circuit in front of the cameras and basically doing the same behind camera, Astrid, once in the Arena, had somehow decided to let Hiccup fumble into her orbit and then dragged them with her on her way to safety through what, looking back, had clearly been an orchestrated attempt to kill Hiccup and through that death punish Dad. And as much as it rankled now to think it, Hiccup couldn’t have survived without Astrid. There was no way. Even Toothless, thoughts of whom Hiccup was very practiced in shoving away (or else risk falling into that other bottomless pit of second-guessing and betrayal) wouldn’t have been enough to save their skin even in some alternate universe where the Gamemakers had no control over muttations. 

They owed Astrid their life. And if not for them, she’d be… well, freer. She’d had gotten through with a minimum of injury. Probably would have ended with a guilt-complex the size of the entire District, but she would have been as free as she ever could be. She’d be back permanently in her beloved cabin except for one torturous month out of the year, like all Mentors. Maybe with a chance for happiness.

A sudden flash of delicious pain shot through their groin, memories surfacing, of how it had been before, before the past two horrible years, the year that they’d begun fighting in earnest and the lost year that they’d been estranged.

Astrid… used to be tender to them. She’d never looked more stunningly beautiful than the first time they had seen her after the Games when a full sixty percent of her was still covered in bandages, her normally gold-tinted ruddy pale skin inflamed and shiny, her hair singed almost completely bare, as she lay in a hospital cot bursting into relieved laughter at the sight of Hiccup limping in on crutches. How she’d looked at them with misty eyes, with such a thankful expression that Hiccup had lost every word that had been on their tongue even through the haze of painkillers.

How they had had something as delicate as eggshells balanced between them for the longest time afterward, how she’d take their hand and lead them to sit away from the crowds that continually clamored for Hiccup’s attention, how the space between their bodies could never quite be crossed except for when Hiccup feigned clumsiness and Astrid had steadied them, or when one or both of them couldn’t help crying and they found themself in her lap, her sweet breath ghosting over their neck. 

And they’d been so embarrassed by how much Astrid hadn’t seemed to reciprocate or even be aware of their desire for her. She’d seemed immovable. Kind, but distant.

She’d been the rock. But she’d slowly been splitting into pieces before Hiccup’s eyes and Hiccup had just started drifting away, hadn’t even bothered to notice. Not with a whole new world of systems and programming and discovering  _self_  and being appreciated for once in their life running like electric current does through wire through every inch of their body and then some.

And then she’d tried to stop them. From entering into a new world without her, from researching some of the inner workings of the Capitol and the Games and all the fascinating ways that the Gamemakers could design systems and muttations and environments, things that unfortunately were designed to target and kill and destroy Tributes. She’d hadn’t seemed to grasp the possibilities, the fact that Hiccup could try to gum up the works of this death machine with their new understanding and access. Not that she’d listened when they’d tried to hint to her  _why_  they were apparently throwing all morality to the winds.

Whatever safety they had thought they’d had in subtlety had been a lie. Not as if Hiccup’s half-assed plans to muck up the Games’ designs had even worked. It was better that Astrid never knew how much all those grand aspirations had failed. Had backfired. Had been checked before and behind by Hiccup’s coworkers and how every mitigating factor in the Tributes’ favor they had tried to introduce had been summarily scrapped. How Hiccup had been under surveillance the whole time, how their ideas had been used against them, and against the Tributes that fell every year. How it was pretty obvious that it was retaliation against  _themself_  that Mentors had been Reaped this Quell. It was better that Astrid thought that they had just not cared about how many had died, rather her ever seeing the absolute extent of their failure, the destruction they had brought upon themself. 

A failure that would soon be completed with their own death unless they could think of a way to help destroy this year’s Arena and the Games’ reputation for the entirety of Panem. 

And now, with the absolute worst timing possible, Astrid seemed more than shattering, but… broken… a hot mess. A hot, unpredictable, unstable, alluring mess that seemed to suck Hiccup in, unwittingly, no matter the official state of things between the two of them. And it was a mess that Hiccup had helped drive Astrid into. Whatever pretensions of independence they’d held this morning before they had seen her again, no matter how often they had told themself that they were over it—that Astrid’s opinion of them finally held no power over them, that the big dumb crush was gone—

—no matter whatever nebulous  _thing_  that had existed between them before Hiccup had in a fit of petulance and impatience with the  _immovable stick Astrid had up her ass_  and her  _inability to see what they were really going through with their job_ had permanently fucked up  _whatever_ it _had been—_

—it was clear that some  _thing_  was still there, and suddenly in full force, with the added danger of a new degree of unpredictability. Astrid wasn’t pretending to care about appearances anymore. Maybe  _couldn’t_ pretend. And a big part of that was that the Games were winning, were beating her. And Hiccup had helped to do that to her, despite every one of her protests.

Hiccup had unwittingly destroyed their only ally in the Arena.

Whatever vague outlines of plans that they had had in their mind for this year’s interview circuit and Games before prancing over to see Astrid today were effectively destroyed too. 

And they didn’t want to examine how much of their own self-confidence had been based on their confidence in Astrid. Or how easy it would be to give up because Astrid was apparently giving up. Accepting that they both were going to die. 

If Astrid believed something about them, it had to be true. That’s what they’d believed for years. However wrongly or rightly. She probably knew them better than anyone except Dad and Gobind. And even through all the times they’d sometimes deliberately start arguments with her, back when there wasn’t anything really to fight about, and even for the past few years of working the Games when they’d been actively driving the wedge between the two of them, Hiccup had never really shaken the feeling that if Astrid said something, and especially if it contradicted their own opinion, it had to be true. It was fucking embarrassing, but there it was.

And she thought they were both goners this time. Contemplating  _that_ was like watching the earth opening up to swallow them whole and drag them to hell. Astrid had lost hope. And if she was just going to accept it, and if they just went along with her like they’d always had when push came to shove, they could both be dead in a matter of days. A couple weeks at most.

But. But! They weren’t the same toothpick fourteen-year-old Abhicandra Haddock from Calgary, the little, rundown northern fishing and forestry capital of Panem District 7, the kid who got yelled at by Dad for bringing in strays, or the gangling, lost child that had been reaped and thrust into a life-or-death situation with no one to trust except a goddess from the outskirts of their District. They were better than before. They could win this thing, with or without Astrid’s help, with or without her belief that it was even possible.

They knew they could. They knew the system behind the Games better than any Tribute ever had or would ever be allowed to again. They could beat this thing. They had to. And they’d definitely have to do it without depending on Astrid this time. Didn’t seem like it was a viable option considering how obviously she was visibly fraying at the edges, unravelling bit by bit.

 _I’ve got to save her. Somehow. But I can’t be close to her this time. For her good, and for mine._ A hot chill shuddered through them at the memory of Astrid’s strong hands on their shoulders, pushing them before her.  _No matter how much I want to._  Thankfully, they’d been able to get away from her when the space between them had become so small, so charged… although now Hiccup didn’t know how much they’d been scared or just turned on …just that they’d had to get out of there before something happened. Before they’d done something they would have regretted, or wouldn’t have been able to pretend hadn’t happened, or before Astrid would have pummeled them into the ground or forced more truth verbally into the situation that Hiccup was comfortable letting her have, now, or ever.

Like the truth of how desperate she was to be done with this shit. Or how obviously she had wanted them in that moment. 

Hiccup finally let themself blush, curling onto their side, hugging their arms against their chest.  _She wants me, though. She really does._ Astrid Hofferson _actually wants me._  It was like being socked in the stomach or being pumped full of a party stim cocktail to think of  _her_ , wanting  _them_. Or being socked in the jaw.  _And, fuck. That was fucking hot._ They felt along the painful tenderness setting in along their cheek, fingers brushing and tongue probing the inside and outside layers of the bruise, tasting a bit of blood where Hiccup had accidentally closed teeth on their inner cheek during the hit. The tangy rot of iron just twisted their gut further.  _Oh god, I just want her to take me, hold me down_.  _Just all of her weight on me._ They let their other hand slither down their bodice, letting themself savor the combination of tracing the tenderness of the bruise on their cheek and the softness of their belly, their hand slowly inching down towards the hot yearning that seemed to be spreading from their core throughout their entire body.  

But it was all they could do, holding a hand against the ache blooming in their face and savoring how close the fireworks sparking on the edge of their vision came to pleasure, and forcing their other hand to stop somewhere low down below their stomach, in the midst of the river of need shooting from their groin into their torso but no further down their hips, barely permitting that hand to rest on top of several layers of crumpled stiff fabric. Their hand weighed the fabric down against them in the tiniest suggestion of pressure: a reminder to themself that  _this can’t happen. I don’t care how long you’ve wanted her, you can’t have her. This isn’t just some hookup at a party that we’d both forget about the next morning. This is… something serious. This also would put both of us in extreme danger._

The unfairness of why it was impossible was even worse than the bare impossibility. It was so un-fucking-fair that they had wanted her before they had even really known what “want”  _meant_ , before they’d even had had a chance to figure out who they were or how they wanted to live, before they had ever tasted freedom (not that they’d ever had, really, but they had  _thought_  they’d been free for a while there—the Capitol made that illusion easy enough to chase if you were in their good graces), juxtaposed by the utter irony of growing up by almost dying, finding themself through the horror of losing everything, and somehow  _Astrid had been there the whole time,_ always intimidatingly perfect, stunning, unapproachable except on her own terms _._ They groaned, recalling the first time they’d ever looked across a room at her and unexpectedly seen her fingering the sharpness of her ax while the flash of a satisfied smile illuminated her face in the dark, amidst the bustling, murderous atmosphere of a group training practice, back when they’d both been far more gangling and way too young, untested by fire and death and betrayal, before they had learned how how to hurt each other.

 _I didn’t even know how to talk to her, then._ The huge rawness of the crush they’d had felt ridiculous, but what was even more embarrassing was how much  _it was still there._  They tossed themselves on their back, hugging their chest. The white plaster ceiling with recessed lighting stared back at them, a twenty-year old lying on their floor like a preteen, feeling just as silly, just as preposterously moody and dissatisfied as they had during as most of their adolescence.

_It’s just not fair. I like her so much. I… would never have met her except for the Games, and I don’t know if I regret that. What if she does though? She probably does. She said as much. And she’s right. Right to think so. Right to wish that it all had never happened._

The thought of it sent anger crackling through them. Anger at what, they couldn’t say. At Astrid? For being smarter than them, for seeing this whole thing for what it was since the beginning? At the fucking Games, maybe, for existing. Definitely at themself, for being weak enough to find something good, several somethings good, in a horrible fucked up situation like this. 

 _And it’s not fair if I try to get close to her again, or let her somehow vent all her anger on me and feel comfortable enough to get close to me again—whichever way I would want it to happen— if it happens at all—because she’ll just suffer more for it. The Capitol is not going to let me get away with rookie mistakes this time._  They’d heard more than enough chatter over the last several years about what tended to be in store for Tributes in love with each other but not in Capitol-sanctioned unions. Plus the fact that Hiccup was certain who the intended target of their own eventual death would be. Being able to hurt Astrid along with Dad would just make it more certain, and that much sooner. Or maybe the Capitol would just go after her first in the Arena, to punish them both before they took out Hiccup to send a message to Dad. 

 _Maybe we’re all doomed. Maybe we can just forget about trying to survive, or resisting, and just make the most of it._  They let a hand dip lower across their stomach, toying with the ruffles around their hips, then stopped. 

_No. I can’t do this. This can’t happen._

_There’s still a chance. There’s still a chance to win this thing. To be free, forever. And it can’t happen if I let us get… involved._

Yeah. They wanted to live more than they wanted Astrid. 

That was going to have to be enough for now.

* * * * * * * 

Astrid found herself waking on the floor of the closet as the sound of a door opening rang through her brain like a siren. Before she could stop herself, she was huddled in the far corner, furiously searching for a weapon on her person, or something that she could use as a weapon, but patting down the silk she wore proved fruitless. The Capitol had never let her have weapons while outside the Arena. She didn’t even have pins in her hair.

The janitor stared at her, their handful of rags and cleaning bottles now fallen to the ground, a squeegee gripped hard in one hand. They raised it before their stricken face. Astrid took one look at the pale hand gripping the black squeegee and felt her heart jump even further up her throat, a huge burst of energy rushing through her limbs. She leapt to her feet, grasping for something, any suitable weapon, any she could throw, but all that she could lay hands on were the squat cleaning robots lined in rows and they weren’t conducive to throwing at enemies. 

 _Wait. Assess._ She let her hands fall to her side, took another look at the person standing before her. They were at least a foot shorter than her, and judging by their lined face and balding head, at least a few decades older than her. And definitely not trained to fight or kill. Especially considering how they were tremblingly holding the squeegee all wrong. She gave a deep breath to let out some of the tension, a shake of her shoulders and arms to relax her clenching hands, and tried to smile. 

"Sorry, I… didn’t… I wasn’t expecting you. Here." Saying it, Astrid realized that it was probably supposed to be the other way around and winced.

“No, this is  _my_  supply closet. You, ah, can’t sleep here. You need to leave.”

"Sorry, sorry, I… I’ll go now. Sorry… for bothering you." She watched as the janitor backed away from her, scrabbling with their free non-squeegee-holding hand for the door handle. They pushed the door handle down so sloppily that their hand slipped off a couple times before they got it open from behind them, backing off with squeegee in guard position before they stepped out into the hall again and, having given her a wide berth, waited for her to leave.

Astrid left, trying but failing not to slump or slouch like a child discovered up to no-good, that ancient shame combined with the discomfort of how acutely aware she was that the janitor shook with nerves, or maybe actual fear, as she passed. The hallway was lit, but the tall windows that overlooked whatever false garden or busy street that was outside (Astrid couldn’t remember noticing which it had been from earlier that day) were dark with the quiet of night. Not even the usual bright bustle of evening. Her shocked, tired reflection stared back at her in the electric light reflected off the inside of the glass.  _It must be really late. How long was I out?_  She began to stagger down the hallway.  _I need to get to my room and sleep. Sleep more. Forget._

She remembered to turn and throw a tiny smile and nod over her shoulder at the janitor, in thanks, or in placation, before she got too far off, but they had already disappeared either into the closet or down the other end of the hall. They must have been terrified to find her. Astrid couldn’t help but slump as she started moving again.  _Ugh. I know. I’m tall and big, and scarred, and famous for being a killer. I know. The ‘exotic’ killer from the northern forests of District 7._   _Of course. I’m fucking terrifying._

Astrid couldn’t blame anyone, though, considering who and what she was. She and her parents, even when living as close to poverty as they had while working timber, had already been dispositioned to gain size and weight, easily building muscle mass, but now having had several years of plentiful food and easy life, no longer living hand-to-mouth or working to the point of near exhaustion, her body had really filled out. Her parents were doing better too, now, with the winnings of her new status, although when she was home, she’d seen in their faces the strain of a lifetime of laboring for survival. They’d given so much to raise her as they did, forbidding her to take extra tesserae, and somehow she’d been able to pay them back beyond her wildest dreams. It didn’t seem right that she had been able to do for them only after having dragged them through the worst terror of their lives. The money that she was able to have transferred to their family account, their new house, and the luxurious monthly allowance of food had nothing to do with honest work, though. They were living off the lives of other children as young or younger than she had been when she’d killed them, plus the pain and suffering of their families. Entire communities’ agony.

She couldn’t help but shudder as every dying visage made its quick and familiar pass through her mind.

Most of those slain children had been smaller than her, too. She hadn’t known her exact measurements when she was Reaped but she estimated that she was now carrying maybe only 25kg more than when she’d been a still rather strong and definitely tall sixteen year old Tribute. Astrid’s physique as a young female lumberjack-in-training had only been rivaled or surpassed by the Tributes from the Career Districts, the ones who’d been competing for the chance to volunteer all their lives. And they’d hated her from the first time they’d laid eyes on her. Maybe even before. Maybe the entire Capitol had started fearing her as a threat as soon as they’d seen the broadcasts of the Reaping in Calgary, watching an overgrown girl on the ceremony platform looking out on a sea of strangers from across the District. Her memories blurred then. 

She couldn’t remember what had happened after arriving at the Reaping ceremony as usual, feeling somewhat blasé as she had endured the nerve-wracking event for the last three years without incident. She couldn’t remember how that fourth doomed ceremony had gone on after the moment that her name had been called out, finally and unexpectedly Reaped. She couldn’t even remember seeing Hiccup for the first time as she must have at that point. The only thing that stood out in her mind was that she had walked to the stage trembling from cold and fear and rage, freshly nauseous from the train ride from the mountain sector and bundled in her mother’s best fur.

Later over the years as Victor and Mentor, she had been forced to watch coverage of her own Games and the surrounding media hype. Her looks and her size and her studied indifference punctuated with startling displays of skill and passion, plus the embarrassingly awkward nature of whatever emotions she had inadvertently shown to the disdain of the Capitol, had all immediately and definitely made her a target for destruction. She knew that now.

But her strength, her ability to murder, had meant that she’d brought not only herself but Hiccup through to the other side. Astrid immediately squashed down the inevitable hope that would try to rise.  _It’s not possible to do it again. They wouldn’t let us_. 

She honestly had never been in better condition physically than right now, even accounting for the burn scars that traversed the side of her face and down her neck all the way to her thigh. What stiffness she had gained in her skin and tissue on her right side was greatly offset by how  _healthy_  she was. For years she hadn’t felt truly hungry or exhausted, like she had while growing up, not since exiting the Arena. But the rumors that surrounded her, so that even regular people like janitors were terrified of her… those hurt, making her entire body ache. It felt like she’d been painted with a huge slash of red—rotten, needing to be cut down. 

But now, having terrified the one person whom she thought would have known that they’d never have anything to fear from her, she couldn’t help but wonder how on target the rumors were.  _I had thought that… that at least Hiccup was safe around me, even if they weren’t safe_ for  _me. But I was wrong to think that._ Her insides squirmed with more guilt, and shame, and self-revulsion.  _I’m dangerous. I should have listened. Should have paid attention to myself. They were right about me. Everyone was._

She found herself tipping over, sagging against a wall, gasping, retching. 

The entire Capitol had been taught to tremble before her stony silences, the threat of violence inherent in her strength and skill, in her body that was never safely feminine enough or white enough or frail enough, and she had proved them correct. Over and over in the Arena. And now…

And now, she had to prove them right again. The other choice was dying. Was letting Hiccup die. And she couldn’t just… let them. Couldn’t let them die. Not without trying to keep them alive, for a little longer. Not without trying to let them know that… that Hiccup could trust her. That Astrid Hofferson was there for them. That— That she cared for them. No matter how misguided they were, even the Hiccup who had been increasingly infuriating and wrong, the one who had purposefully driven her away with coldness and stubbornness—and that had all been because she had  _disapproved_. Disapproved of their job and what seemed to be a frightening new amoral turn in their behavior, an unmooring of all that she had thought they were. The young Tribute that she had thought she  _understood_ , because they had gone through hell together, was the opposite of a murderer, was the one who had tamed a  _dragon muttation in the Arena,_ of all things, and convinced her not to kill it based on some misguided sense of pacifism even while they were both supposed to be fighting to survive. Even though trusting  _anything_  that the Capitol had made or offered was a huge mistake. She had told them so, repeatedly.

That same Hiccup, who later became the darling clothes-horse of the Capitol, in the most painful twist of fate had turned out to be an even more cunning killer than she was. 

But…. she somehow had continued to care for them, even through all her disapproval and eventual horror of what they were becoming. Or what they had been fronting as becoming—she couldn’t confidently say if Hiccup had genuinely thought that their traps were designed so well, so  _humanely_ … that they could somehow be easily avoided if you were smart enough— _so there’s a requirement of intelligence to live?_ she had spit at them— or if that claim of theirs had just been a front, a shield against her judgmental tirades. Which she had only let them have from her because she cared! She cared, dammit! She cared if they turned into a monster! She cared that they’d chosen to become the epitome of a Capitol citizen, without conscience or hesitation to join in a murderous, oppressive system. And she still cared for Hiccup, despite the shit they’d pulled, despite their growing and unmistakable entanglement with the Capitol and its machinations. She still cared.

 _That was the root of it, the start of all this… mess,_  she suddenly realized, and what a fucking small and terribly insignificant root it seemed to be in the midst of everything. The root that she only wished she could rip out from between them to make things less complicated, so they could stop tripping over it, the root that was trying to grow in the equivalent of hard barren ground riddled with thorns and brambles, things that were hard to uproot and even harder to eradicate.

This tiny, insignificant root persisted. What was even trying to grow?

 _Hell_  if she knew. 

It was tiring, trying to understand what exactly had been going on between them. Why she couldn’t just shake them off like a mistake, like a lost cause. Not even after a year of total radio silence while holing up at her parents’ place.

 _But_ , she mused blankly, pushing herself off the wall with renewed desire for bed and sleep,  _I’ve… I’m… something is different. We’re different. And not just the fight. Not just Hiccup trying to worm their way back like the last year never happened. Something is… making everything… heavier. More… difficult. Delicate._

Something was making it harder to function than she’d felt in a long time.

It wasn’t just the added stress of knowing that she was about to die. She knew that stress intimately. The increased frequency and intensity of her flashbacks, of night terrors that she couldn’t wake from and nightmares that she could, these were all familiarly distressing, but more disturbingly, her mental state seemed to be deteriorating.

Something felt more fragile this time around. She was more vulnerable. It was like she had something more to lose.

Well, yes, of course, she had Hiccup to worry about this time. Last Games, they’d just been someone from her District, a tiny kid that she couldn’t waste time or energy on because they’d probably die in the first five minutes. She had gone into the Arena with a brief hope that they’d be spared any unnecessary agony, but her terror had been for herself. For herself, and in the back of her mind, for her parents watching hundreds of kilometers away.

This time. This time, for sure, so much  _more_  could be lost.

Astrid fumbled for her key card in her pants pocket before her door and closed her fingers around the handle—

—a flash of remembrance of Hiccup’s slim, delicate wrist bones and soft, beautifully tended brown skin under her hand as she strode angrily out of the conference room—

—the whiff of their scent as they’d passed on their way out of the cleaning closet, salt and something cloyingly sweet mixed with  _them_ , the smell of them that she had first learned in the Games, nursing their wounds, huddling as close to them as she could without encroaching on Toothless’ personal space when the night temperatures had started to drop to dangerous levels as the Games had wound down to the last remaining Tributes—

—a hundred memories of holding them close against her body—always alone, always in private, away from cameras and crowds and strangers—when one or both of them had been crying, shaking with horrors that had scarred their minds, or when Hiccup’s amputated leg was firing ghost pains too painful to bear standing up, or when a party had gotten too much for her and Hiccup come searching to discover her crouched in a bathroom or on a terrace or in a cleaning closet shaking shaking shaking—

 _Fuck._ She closed her door behind her in a slam, as jittery as the janitor had been earlier.  _Astrid. What the fuck. What did you do?_

It was like the earth was yawning open before her feet, waiting for her to fall. It was like being bulldozed over with six years’ worth of… want. Desire. She wanted them. Sexually. Romantically. In every way.

 _I_   _want them. Bad._

She had to sit down, barely able to aim herself to fall into the nearest chair.

 _Hiccup._ That _Hiccup. The one that’s been the biggest irritating little ass recently, for the past… year. Two years._ She gulped.  _Shit._   _Shit. Right._ The image of their smug  _everything_ , gorgeous and shining and polished from head to toe, grown up, confident, and self-possessed to the point of irritation, rose before her eyes.  _Of course. They’re. Beautiful. Perfect. Brilliant. Infuriatingly so. And they’re so sweet and patient with me when they’re not being a total turd._

Astrid blinked. 

_Wait. How long has this been going on?_

The bare facts stared her in the face. When was the last time she had seriously dated someone? A couple of datefriends from high school drifted up like old ghosts. She couldn’t even remember if she had seen them again since being Reaped. Her life was neatly divided into Before the Arena and After the Arena. As for after? There hadn’t been anyone, but then she had never thought to… pursue anyone, had never liked anyone, not enough to notice, and had just chalked up the additional indifference to trauma. It had never been a problem to explain it to herself the few times she had wondered.  _But Hiccup. They’ve always been right there. For at least a while._   _Definitely longer than you’ve realized, for sure. Since you’ve only just noticed._

It didn’t matter. Maybe it’d gone back as far as she had known them.

But they’d always been out of reach. They’d always been so young, small, immature, so beautiful, someone that she had never thought to do anything for but worry over, protect, guard. Almost like a younger sibling at first. Her heart pricked at her.  _Be honest. Almost. But not quite._  She’d never had a sibling before. She’d had no way to compare, to judge, or to distinguish something like that, but it somehow seemed preposterous to think of now. This sudden avalanche of feelings was very obviously not platonic.

It was so unsettling. She had never had the chance or the need or even the desire to sit down and examine every single confusing feeling she’d ever had about Hiccup or the awful circumstances they’d met under. Neither of them had ever had a moment of actual peace or safety to live a life without the specter of the Games hovering over their childhoods and adolescences, and now the rest of their entire lives. There were so many things that she had grown practiced at sweeping under the rug, because survival was more important, more pressing, than examining feelings, or even acknowledging feelings.

Until now. For the first time in her life that she could remember, she couldn’t help but let waves and waves of feelings wash over her, blow through her like a storm, bending everything in her completely over, rearranging her. She felt like she might slide out of the chair onto the floor, but she had to let it keep coming. There was no logic to hold it back anymore. The rawness of desire that seemed to flood her body, the warmth and overwhelming nature of… liking Hiccup so much— _so goddamn much_ —the surprise of it all— _where had all this been hiding—like a fog of painkillers finally lifting_ —feeling naked like she was a tree stripped of bark and left exposed to the elements, easy pickings for pests—cringing at the ease with which the emptiness of despair followed, the temptation to rage against everything that had ever robbed her of her youth, her freedom, her forest, and her family, finally overcome by the futility of even struggling at all. It was all too strong to try to suppress, too important and dangerous to ignore.

Letting herself feel, and feel so deeply—it scared the hell out of her. But something… something about this was right. Not only right, but necessary to survival. Even if Astrid only had a couple weeks maximum before her life was over. 

Only a couple of weeks maximum before Hiccup was gone too.

Her eyes prickled at the thought. She didn’t have any tears left, though. It didn’t seem like anything worth crying over, anyway, even if there had been moisture left in her body. Death was inevitable, and she had already cheated it once in a big way. There was no guarantee that she or Hiccup would make it against twenty-two other Victors. The chances of survival were even less for both of them surviving together. But no matter how short a future she had, it stretched bleakly before her if things stayed like they were between her and Hiccup. 

But. But if there was a chance that she could cherish what little time alive she had with them, if there was any way they could know how she felt, if she could try to express to Hiccup what they meant to her before she died… If she could keep them alive for as long as possible, maybe the future wasn’t as empty as it seemed.

Right? Wasn’t that the reason that Hiccup had come to see her today? What other reason could they have had to risk seeing her even in all her inevitable explosion of anger? Even with every shitty thing either of them had ever said or done to each other hanging between them, they’d tried to get right with her again. The two of them didn’t have much time. Life was literally too short to spend it fighting with the person you cared about most. 

Right?

Astrid gripped the arms of her chair, dizzy with the rush. She made herself breathe deeply, willing herself to come back to reality, to the here and now. Forcing herself to her feet, she shakily waddled her way through the apartment to the communications portal, pulled up Hiccup’s room number, and sent a short text message before letting herself fall into bed.

She stared up at the ceiling as she pulled her hair out of the thick high-set braid and settled back against her pillow. Slipped her hair tie over her hand and clapped to turn off the lights. Turned on her side as determination and a single hope, like embers banked for the night, glowed in a tight heat. Closed her eyes, but didn’t sleep. Waited like a stone until morning.


	3. Chapter 3

_[ssryr bout tyour face. we need tho ttalk]_

Hiccup sat back. Rubbed their sleep-ridden eyes. It was unmistakably from Astrid’s room. They read it again. Checked the timestamp. _Yesterday. 01:47._  Quite a few hours after… the altercation. And a good while after they’d gone to bed after a long day of seeing their tailor, getting measured for this season’s outfits’ alterations and apologizing for destroying the skirt’s lining.  _Jim had been so upset about that crinoline, though. And had been really suspicious and broody about the bruise. Couldn’t actually hide it. ‘E immediately knew that Astrid was back._

They read it again.  _[ssryr bout tyour face. we need tho ttalk]_

It didn’t make things clearer any more than it had the first ten times!  _Shit. Shit shit shit shit SHIT what does she want_ now _?_ Astrid was apologizing. And wanted to talk.  _About what? So she can just yell at me some more? So we can try to figure a way out of everything?_ An unwanted thought of  _So she can jump my bones?_  was summarily pushed away.  _Nope. Not gonna think like that. Not gonna. Can’t accomplish Plan: Stay Alive if you’re gonna act like a twitterpated ass._

_So. Ahem. Why, then?_

They poised their fingers over the keyboard. Was it wise to ask? Especially on this insecure channel. Especially when the answer could be… could be fucking anything. And it could have just been… late-night texting? Or  _drunk_ late-night texting?  _Did Astrid even drink?_ She’d never really partaken as long as they’d known her. Definitely not to excess. Would she be awake now? It would be kinda early for her if she’d been up at almost 2 last night.

_[ssryr bout tyour face. we need tho ttalk]_

_SHIT._

What if she was really in trouble? Or hurt? They’d just left her there in the closet. Had someone important found her? Had a  _news team_ stumbled on her while on their way to an interview?

Hiccup flipped up the recent news feed. Nothing about Astrid Hofferson. Yet.  _Fuck. What if one of her stylists decides to yap about how she just stormed out of a meeting dragging me behind her?_

 _Fuck. WHAT IF IT GETS OUT THAT THEY THINK WE’RE BONING. I can just see the gossip rags and forum posts: ‘Closeted hate-sex between the District 7 Mentors.’ ‘We KNEW THEY WERE FUCKING ALL ALONG. OUR SHIP FINALLY SAILED! HOFFOCK D7 OTP KEYSMASH!!’ There’s enough of our original fanbase left that it’d make a huge noise. And of course, once the Gamemakers got wind of it, they’d_ love _it, dammit._

“Just the type of thing I’m trying to prevent.” They couldn’t help but let that sentence fall out of their mouth along with a sigh despite their long and paranoid practice of monologuing only in their thoughts.  _Oh, and of course this room is bugged. Her’s will be too. If we_ were  _going to meet, where? Where’s safe? Somewhere private enough that we can speak openly, but not so remote that she gets… ideas… and I can’t get comfortable enough to let down my guard… shit. Where, Hiccup? And not a closet again. Closets are BAD IDEAS. Easy to misinterpret._ GOD. This was so hard. This was going to be so goddamned difficult to do.

 _What if I just… don’t. Just, ignore it. Ignore her. Pay her back for our first Games. Get us through the interview circuit and then we can hash it all out. Somewhere. Like on the ride to the drop-off. Or in the Arena. Assuming we can both survive long enough to have time to talk._ Another troublesome idea presented itself.  _She’s… not herself. She’s really not. Is she… does she…want to live? Will she make it this time by herself long enough to stay alive and out of trouble until I can figure something out?_

Shit. There was no telling. Astrid had always done whatever she’d thought she’d needed to do to survive—it was one of the most predictable things about her in the eyes of Capitol strategists—but yesterday… yesterday seemed to be a big pile of evidence against that. She was different than before. Maybe she’d changed, that year that she’d cut off contact. And the lack of information of  _why she’d changed_ and  _what exactly was different_ was dangerous. As clearly demonstrated by their failure yesterday to talk their way back into her good graces. Hiccup needed to figure out what was going on with her, and fast.

Not to mention that they’d really had missed her. A lot.

SHIT.  _Okay. Okay. I’d… better just find out what she wants._  

 _[hey, just got up. if you want to talk, let’s meet sometime today. when are you free?]_  Hopefully she wouldn’t be up for a while, and they could decide where to meet and how to handle this in the meantime.

 _Against all my better instincts. I’m too far gone. Soft._ Hiccup huffed to no one in particular. 

They’d taken a sit-down shower, reattached what they called their ‘business’ prosthetic (the plain, rubber-coated one without a heel extension), and had stood in front of their mirror, in the middle of figuring out what they wanted to do with their hair that day, when the door bell chimed.

 _Dammit. Don’t have my face on, not even dressed._ It was probably a package delivery; they had ordered some new cosmetics a couple days ago and was expecting them to come soon.  _A little earlier than usual this morning_. They quickly shrugged on a robe over the towel they were already wearing but didn’t belt it closed.  _Eh, let the delivery person deal with it if they happen to see me. They’ve probably seen worse._

Hiccup wrung some of the water out of their hair into the sink before rushing out to crack the door open and zipping back into the bathroom. “You can just set it inside the door and close it behind you!” they shouted as they grabbed a smaller hand towel off the rack, shook their hair looser from its wet clumps, and started patting their head dry. They heard the click of the door shutting and started moseying their way back out to the living area, towel in hand, head cocked to the side as they sponged some more moisture out of their shoulder length waves, which were already threatening to frizz and separate into stringiness. They had never had much luck in the hair texture department, so much less than Dad’s luxurious, thick stuff that seemed to sprout from every inch of available skin on his strong and ample body. Apparently Hiccup took a bit more after their mother, who, while not tiny or hairless by any known standard, would possibly have been much more acceptable to Capitol standards of beauty had she lived and happened to come here. 

Hiccup finally walked out into the living room, bending over to towel-rough their waves up into something approaching fluffiness for air drying.  _Well, it’s really not a bad thing. Taking after Dad and trying to get fitted and groomed for dresses and skirts would probably be a nightmare._

A noise in the room, like a cough, caught their attention. “Oh, does the package need to be signed for?” Still shaking their hair out, they straightened up. “That’s weird, s’not what usually—”

Their hand spasmed. 

They dimly felt the towel fall from their hand onto their one bare foot of flesh as every particle of oxygen in their lungs and every other thought in their head was immediately expelled.

Astrid had been the one at the door. Not a delivery.  

 _Astrid_  was the one who had come in.

Astrid was standing in Hiccup’s living room, only a few paces away, her waist-length lank hair straggled over her shoulders while wearing yesterday’s rumpled silk jumpsuit and the reddest face they’d ever seen on her, staring directly at them. Not just staring. Looking up and down in quick darts, but always her gaze coming back to meet their eyes. Like, like she was asking something. Asking  _for_  something.

Her mouth worked distractingly. She was struggling for words. She’d soon be saying something, something unsafe, something surveillance would pick up and use to make both of their lives a living hell before they died. Finally Hiccup’s brain kicked back into gear.  _She can’t be here. Here is the very opposite of where she should be. This can NOT happen._

Realizing how much skin they had exposed and feeling, on the one hand, daringly exhibitionist, and on the other, extremely sure that showing off in front of Astrid right now was possibly the worst idea in the world, they pulled their robe shut, starting to tie it as fast as they could, their hands feeling as slow and clumsy as if they had ballooned to twice their size. “Hey, uh, Astrid, hi, Astrid, hi, Astrid, hi. I, uh, wasn’t expecting you… here. At all. I thought—I thought-we-were-gonna-meet-up, yes, but  _later. Much_ later, and much… farther away…” the last bit kinda squeaked on its way out, “from here.” In a whisper. “From my room.” They swallowed, finally tugging the knot of the belt into place.  _Gotta make the best of this._

They turned away, searching for something worthy of boring, safe, inane conversation while they figured an exit strategy of this mess, of getting her back out the door. “Uh, hey, I’ve still got to get ready for the day but, you’ve… uh, never seen my new digs before, have you… it’s been a year and all that. Um, let me give you a tour before I let you go. I’ve got a nice new furniture set—“

“Hiccup.” 

Her voice stopped them. As if they could do anything else when she embraced their name using that gentle tone. They found themself turning around to face her, heart knocking in their chest and drumming through their neck. 

“Hiccup, I… I wanted to say that I’m sorry.” She was wringing her hands, looking down at her feet, clad only in socks and house slippers. “For… what I did. For what I said. For how I treated you. I was wrong.” She lifted her face, blazing determination etched through every sorrowful feature.

_No. No, we cannot have honest, heartfelt apology conversations in here. Nooooo! Not opening any of those millions of cans of worms. Not here. Not now. Not ever._

It seemed like there was only one way out. “Astrid, that’s real sweet, but I don’t accept. I need you to leave. I’ve… got to get ready. We can meet later. Somewhere else. I just.  _Can’t accept that apology right now_ ,’ grinding out the last phrase through their teeth.  _READ MY MIND. PLEASE. GET OUT BEFORE YOU GET BOTH OF US IN TROUBLE._

Astrid looked stricken and confused, and… annoyed, her eyes narrowing at them in an all too familiar way. “You… can’t accept that apology. Right now.”

“Yes.”

“But… you could accept  _another_  apology?” Her arms had crossed and her head tilted dangerously, although her eyebrows were relaxing, peaking together.

“Yes. NO. Astriiiiid.”

“Then, what do you mean, Hiccup?” Her tone was approaching a heart-breaking combination of annoyance, guilt and sorrow that Hiccup would really have loved to savor and extend further if only it wasn’t the absolute wrong time to tease Astrid into groveling more or, alternately, starting a fight with them.

“I  _mean,_  I can’t accept that apology  _right now._ ” They grimaced. This was cutting it close. “Or,  _right here._ ”

“What do you want, then, Hiccup? Tell me.” 

The words had been firm, exasperated, but Hiccup startled as they noticed the little grin beginning to curl up on Astrid’s lip. It was too fucking cute, dangerous as hell. They met her eyes, taking a step back involuntarily.  _God, she’s just too hot._ “You. To get out.” The words trembled in Hiccup’s mouth and they wanted to kick themself.

“Me. Get out?” Now she was teasing them. 

“Leave and let me get dressed.”

“Oh, right. But we’re still going to talk?” The command was almost explicit.

“Yes. Just… gooooo… Astrid, pleeeease.”

She turned for the door, opening it a sliver before looking over her shoulder. “Ok. Meet me in my room. In ten.” She slipped through the door, closing it softly.

Dammit.  _As if that’s any better. As if that sounds any better to anyone listening._ But there had to be a way that this didn’t have to be totally disastrous. Hiccup fairly sprinted to the comm portal, customarily hacked into the building layout and blueprints and then took a detour through the security backdoor. Every room had a series of surveillance feeds, audio and visual, and some outfitted with infrared sensors.  _Oh,_ _śukarī’ā_ _, yes, she only has one simple audio feed. Ok, then, definitely a better choice than here—fuck, they’ve probably got me pinned down with listening devices and cameras on every surface in here. I’m gonna have to poke around later and see what they’ve picked up._

Hiccup threw off the robe and towel and tore through their closet to grab shit to wear. Heart-poundingly few seconds later they were out the door wearing some old slouch dress from last season over tights and fairly jogging down the corridors to Astrid’s room, praying that no one would recognize them. It would be surprising if anyone did. They’d not been so casually dressed like this out in public for years. Hiccup’s face felt so naked. They bent their head to let their hair hang in their face as much as possible.

They slowed down to a walk as they neared Astrid’s hallway. 

_Ok. Wait. Why did I rush over here? Calm down. What am I doing. Ok. First, assess the situation. Second. Either get that audio feed blocked or neutralized. Third. Oh God… don’t let her say too much._

_Fourth. Convince her that she has to try to survive. That I can get us through this._

_Right? I can do it._

Her door opened right before their hand could knock. She’d been waiting, watching through the peephole or listening through the door. Hiccup gulped as she shooed them in, and pointed out where they could toe off their shoes. They pivoted on one bare foot in the middle of her living quarters, letting the spare but comfortable room sink in, trying not to care that they’d not been in here in a year, and the last time being their absolute worst quarrel. It… looked the same. It looked exactly the same as before. It made the nerves even worse.  _Please, help us not to fight. Or… anything else. Something in the middle. Something safe._

Hiccup turned again, to meet her eyes. Astrid started, like she’d forgotten something, or had been lost in thought. She turned away and closed the door, finally. Her brown hair was finally brushed back into a tail that swept down her strong back, but unbraided for once, flowing like a river, like a stream. It just begged to be played with, thick strands that still held some sand-color at the ends from six years ago—her stylists had finally forced her to have her hair bleached to drum up audience support, and these were the only remaining bits of the blonde that had avoided being burned or scorched irrevocably in fire… They shook their head, trying to clear it of memories, of associations, of history. But looking at Astrid without thinking of what they’d endured together was impossible. Her every movement, every part of her, had a memory attached, or a longing, or a memory of a longing.

Looking at Astrid without thinking of… things that Hiccup had already  _told_  themself they couldn’t entertain thoughts of now or ever was also clearly goddamned impossible. They had to focus.

But she took their hand and led them to the sofa before they could make any sort of headway on that.

She sat them down next to her, angling herself towards them, a brightness in her eyes that Hiccup was scared to look at but found way too easy to interpret.  _Shit. You’re… expecting something._  It was going to be so hard not to give it. Especially when about 75%, no, 90% of everything in them was screaming to do it.

 _Lemme try to steer this thing around, then._   _Starting with getting off the couch and breaking this weird-ass mood._

“I, uh, gotta do something.” Hiccup felt like they practically leapt to their feet to plop themself down in front of the comm portal. They frantically started replicating this morning’s steps to checking the room’s surveillance, trying to hide their tracks but not sure if it even mattered. They weren’t familiar enough with this system to do more than make it seem like a routine procedure done by a mid-level security clearance, unfortunately. It would still probably raise questions unless they went to fix it later, with more time, more precision and backtracking.

“Hiccup, something wrong?” 

“Shhhhh! Shhhh…quiet… Wait. Go turn on the shower.”

“Do I smell?” She didn’t sound amused, but the only way to be sure was to take a look at her expression and Hiccup couldn’t spare a moment from coding their way through to glance over their shoulder.

“Uh, no, I just…” They raised their voice. ”Coming over to do your makeup, I want to start with a clean palette, you know. Take your time, I’ll… research some options over here.”  _Please let her understand. Please. Let her see what I’m doing._

They flipped up another window and let it go to a standard app of color choices and design options, just to put it in the browser history. A muffled-carpet step and the undeniable presence of Astrid was suddenly right there behind them and to the right, less than a hands’ breadth away from their back. A chill started from between their shoulder blades and left warmth in its wake all through their body, hairs raising. They paused in their typing.

“Oh, I see. You want me to take a shower. Then… we can talk through some… preparations?” Her voice was low, steady.

“Please, Astrid. It’s the only way I can help you. I’m… good at make-up. Covering up… blemishes.” They stared steadily at the projection screen, then at the keyboard, feeling like they were on the point of begging. To get her to understand. To take the hint and put up some sound cover. To stop overwhelming them with her scent and presence and bright heat. “Just… go start the hot water in the bathroom while I work on this.”

“Ok.”

She was gone. Hiccup felt their back unhunch, their shoulders relax. 

The shower turned on at full blast. They sped through what was a pretty easy feat of marking the sensor in Astrid’s room as undergoing a signal malfunction and switching it off. It’d be just as easy to figure out what happened unless they went back and falsified more records later, maybe spliced in the sound of a distant shower on loop, but for now… for the next… however long this took to hash out, to explain what they knew and what they were capable of, to convince Astrid not to give up… they’d made their own way, they were taking their own chance. 

This was possible. They could do it. They could do it together. Or die trying.  _But dying’s definitely not Plan A._

Getting up from the comm portal, Hiccup turned to see Astrid standing, waiting, arms akimbo, a foot tapping, but her head down. In thought. 

She looked up. “Now, Hiccup?” 

“Bathroom. Follow me.”

Her bathroom, on the same rather expansive setup of shower, toilet, mirror, sink and counter as Hiccup’s, was bare except for a small bag of toiletries on the counter facing the mirror, which Hiccup found themself digging through, hands shaking a bit. Seeing exactly how bare-faced they were in front of Astrid and right in the middle of her living space after  _everything_  was somehow terrifying, and so was needing to say things, broach subjects, that they didn’t know how they were going to navigate. It was easier to just start talking about anything. “Wow, you’ve… really cut down your maintenance routine. Not that it was ever… extensive. You’ve always been pretty down-to-earth, I guess.” Hiccup knew it sounded like just jabbering, but now that it was safe to talk, of course only inanities would come out. “I… still think we should put on a show of what I could possibly be helping you with, in case someone comes—you aren’t expecting any company anytime soon, right?—but you barely have anything.”

The shower thundered on, already beginning to fog the corners of the mirror. 

“Hiccup, I…”

“No, no, let me talk first. But seriously, do you have anything at all, makeup or… or nail polish or something that I could be doing? Or pretending to do. Ah, here’s a comb.” They hesitated. “Uh…”

“My hair’s already done for the day, Hiccup.”

“Uh, isn’t… isn’t it usually in a braid though?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Uh… take it down, then. I’ll… just.” It was such a good excuse that they hesitated to say. Too temptingly good of an excuse.

“Just what?” She was looking in the mirror at the tail of hair in her hands as it draped over a shoulder.

Hiccup suddenly got the feeling that she was teasing them. Again.

“Just… let me be working on your hair. Astrid. Pleeease. I don’t want to get us in trouble.” Lowering their voice, “I already took care of surveillance for now… I just, don’t want to take any risks.”

“Ok, Hiccup. Consider it yours.” She sat down on the toilet, pulled out the hair tie, shook her hair loose over her shoulders, and turned her head. “How do you want me?” She handed the elastic tie over, letting it drop neatly into Hiccup’s hand.

Hiccup slipped it over a wrist and tried not to seem too nervous. “Um, just… facing the mirror. I, uh, yeah. Good idea on sitting down. You’re a lot taller than me.” They stood behind her, now seated perpendicularly to the toilet seat lid’s regular business angle, facing the mirror that was steadily being covered by condensation.

“Not by more than a head, though.” She gathered her hair and pushed it back over her shoulders.

Her hair, down, flowing over her back, was not a sight they had often seen, the rich brown with some blacks and some lighter chestnuts and silvers mixed in like ripples in a current. Hands, greedy hands, of theirs, were finding themselves stroking, swimming, skimming the comb down the hair that was lanker, finer than their own, something that weighed itself heavily down against her or that meekly obeyed her customary braid starting close to the crown of her head pulled from the nape of her strong neck. So different from their own hair, which was much more wiry and glossy and with a mind of its own, something that confounded most attempts of control, so that they had to mostly just let it do what it wanted. But then their hair was already getting weighed down by the moisture in the air. The shower steam had almost completely covered the mirror.

In the remaining unfogged section, Hiccup could just see Astrid’s smile, the one that squeezed her face into a heart shape.

“So, you said you wanted to go first. Are you going to? Or should I talk? You seem to be content just combing.”

Hiccup’s chest jolted.  _Oh, right._ “Um, yeah, I… I accept your apology… for… for everything. And, and, I know I shouldn’t have surprised you like that yesterday, and so I think I put you in a bad frame of mind and then I… well, I place part of the blame on me. I really am sorry. But I also… I want to let you know that… I didn’t come to you yesterday because… it’s not just because I wanted you to come with me into the Arena. I want you to know—to know that I’m going  _with_  you. I can help you. I know so much about how the Arena works now and how muttations are controlled and environmental design, like, there’s lots of patterns that they still have to follow with the coding and all that, so I could probably guess pretty quickly what’s going on as soon as we get there, and I remember a lot of rejected designs from the last two years, plus what sort of strategies they’ll probably be using, I mean, way more detailed than what people like us when we were just audience members would be able to guess when they’re watching the program so you know, we could really… we could really win this thing again.” 

They paused, waiting for a response. Astrid had tilted her head to the side. The mirror was completely fogged over but they could guess her reaction. Not buying it. Hiccup grimaced. “We could! We really could. And… and I know this sounds crazy, but we could. Win. Win so hard, so much, that… that this Games would mean nothing. That. That the Gamemakers would be embarrassed and… and leadership would change or something and there’d be a lot of uproar, and, and I have contacts with some people who know other people who want-to-over-throw-the-government and who know places we could get to if it gets too hot over here in Panem…”

They paused for breath, the ideas tumbling from their mouth, from their actual mouth, not just rolling around in their mind like marbles in a bowl, and it felt good, so good, to just say them, like, like they were actually possible. Freedom was possible. Freedom, for them, and for Astrid. And then, later, maybe they could be happy.

“So, Astrid, I… have a lot that I want to explain to you on how this could go—I’m these people’s insider, y’know—so, I just… I don’t want you to think that there’s no way out of this. We could do this. Yeah. We could even get out of there, out of the Games, that’s something they’re saying we could do, too, just leave, escape and just… live. I don’t want to lose you. I just—“ They shut their mouth. Mushy territory wasn’t what was needed. “I just… need you to promise me that you’ll stay alive. That you’ll try hard to stay alive. Let me take care of this. Please.”

Astrid hadn’t moved. Hiccup set the comb, which had long since stilled in their hands, on the corner of the tub behind them and came around to her side and got down on their knees, clasping the balled fists in her lap. “C’mon, Astrid. Promise me.”

She lifted her eyes, staring into middle distance. “I can’t make that promise, Hiccup.” Her voice was like a stone. “There are no guarantees that either of us will survive. There’s no…” She looked at him, her eyes snapping, reddening. “Hiccup. What proof do you have for all of these plans? All of these… rebels? What do they want in return? What are they going to ask of you, of us, if we follow their instructions?” She stood up, her height towering over Hiccup, still on their knees, her body a mass of strength and beauty that broke their heart for them to see. She walked to the sink and leaned her weight against her palms on either side of it, bending over like she was nauseous.

Hiccup slowly got to their feet, the stub of their knee paining them. “Astrid, if you need to see plans, or… I don’t know, want to read my previous communication with them, I mean… I can show it all to you… I just, I need you to believe me.”  _Believe that… that I’m worth something. That I can do this._ “Believe me. I know I’m springing a lot on you at once, but you gotta see, it’s… it’s got potential to be an actual plan, it’s not like the other times!”

She turned her head, rotating her body so that her hip supported her against the counter. “What other times do you mean, Hiccup?” her tone deadpan. “Like your half-assed idea to become a Gamemaker? Yeah. It’s stuff like that that makes it hard to believe that this is real. That this could work.” She pushed off from the sink, her hair limply trailing behind her, and reached into the shower, turning the knob to cold. “Waste of heat. Too steamy in here.” She grimaced, gave yet another skeptical look.

Hiccup felt like they were going to jump out of their skin. “Astrid. Astrid, I’m serious. There’s a whole organization of people who contacted me. They… knew about me, because, well, I’m famous, and stuff.” They couldn’t keep the pride out of their voice.

“Yeah, Hiccup, famous for what? For partying? For clothes? For being a great Games designer, celebrity killer of children?”

“Yes! No! I mean, yes, all of it. But honestly, I just found out right after they announced that I’d volunteered for that other District 7 Mentor, you know, the old one—which I didn’t, by the way, although they made it sound like I did—like, something’s super fishy the way that happened because I would have never—I mean… well anyway and so I was really glad to find out that people wanted to help. And I told them that I couldn’t help them unless they promised to help… more than just me. Like, every Mentor who got Reaped who’s willing. So supposedly they’re working on that right now.”

Astrid had continued to stand there, listening, her face illegible. Hiccup stepped closer to her. If they had to plead and beg, they would. “Astrid, please. You might not trust it yet. I know that. At least say you’re willing to stay alive. For me.”

Her face scrunched, something between pain and pleasure, and she twisted, let herself fall to the tiled bathroom floor, catching herself on her hands and knees, then sat back kneeling, looking up into Hiccup’s face, who stood transfixed, stuck, struck. She searched their eyes, her face streaked with condensation, and flushed, blinking back tears.

“I’m more worried about you.” It was muffled, soft, her curtain of hair slanting forward as she bent over, her hands gripping her knees and her body quivering, chest beginning to heave. 

Hiccup couldn’t, just couldn’t—she was wracked in silent sobs—and ignoring the sirens blaring in their mind, sat down next to her, brushing aside the hair back behind her ear, allowing themself to stroke a water droplet from her brow, letting their— _intoxicated with the feel of her_ —right hand trace down to her cheekbone, to her jaw. “No, no, don’t cry, I’ll be fine, I’m, I’m a lot better than I was before, I won’t fall down hills, I— I know my ground-level plants now!”

She laughed-sobbed and lifted a hand to lightly cup over theirs. “But I… I’d give anything… I just don’t want you to die.” She sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve, shrugged. “As for staying alive… I’d rather promise to protect you. If you went before me… I… I’d be lost.” Her eyes met theirs, drew them in, locked gazes. Her other hand, at first hesitantly, brushed under their hair onto the side of Hiccup’s neck, then heavy, possessive, tracing a vanishing line over their jaw, her fingers barely brushing against the bruise that bloomed on their cheek.

_God—_

They couldn’t help but lean harder into her hand, stars exploding into view, something burning, bursting into flames—

_Oh_

The ache was enough to make them moan despite themself. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, right before she kissed them.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The taste of blood was not what Astrid was expecting upon kissing Hiccup for the first time. She’d pulled back to take a breath and there it was, iron smiting her tongue as Hiccup surged forward into her arms, as they opened and opened like a blossom and welcomed her to come closer, limbs and mouth trembling and soft, the slight tang of blood flowing and ebbing as Hiccup kept on kissing her back, their lips gentle but demanding. She’d take a breath and Hiccup would groan in complaint and then she’d have to kiss them all over again, to keep them from sending such hot shooting aches through her thighs, and they were slowly leaning back, pulling her down by tugging on her collar and sleeves and palming the nape of her neck and she had to follow them, had to, because their tongue, it was luring her, they wouldn’t kiss her enough unless she went down too along with them and  _god_ their hips, their hips fit just right under her thighs and everything slick and tight and throbbing and ugh her hair was everywhere, in her face, in Hiccup’s face and they were laughing—

“Where’d the hair tie go,” she heard herself sputtering as she rose up on her knees a little and spit some of her hair out.

“C’mere, geeze, you gave it to me when I was going to do your braid.” Hiccup let one hand let go of her shoulder long enough to bring their wrist to their mouth and use their teeth to pull the elastic tie off their wrist. Their lips were, wow, she’d never noticed how nice their lips looked, not until she’d kissed them, knew how they felt under hers. 

She grinned, taking the hair tie from their fingers before they could mischievously finish tangling it between them, and sitting back in a straddle, began to rapidly pull back the gobs of hair that had interrupted her into a bun. Hiccup lay there on her bathroom floor under her, looking dazed as hell and just as happy, letting their gaze drift from her face down her arching torso and back up again, their hands settled just on the crease between her waist and her hip, their left thumb caressing the silk above her hipbone, at one moment accidentally catching on the vertical hardened ripples of scars left from the edges between the skin grafts. She stiffened, her hands frozen in her hair.

Hiccup noticed as soon as she did, and she knew by the flutter of their eyelashes that they were remembering that moment of falling too, the terror and the pain, as she was trying not to do, but their own nightmare. She shivered, let it pass over her.

A breath out. Astrid was ok. Not in the Games. Yet. She was… straddling Hiccup and both of them were breathing erratically, and mostly from kissing until they were out of breath. Which was really too amazing to think of as real.

And why hadn’t she done this sooner? She felt like kicking herself, but for what… wasting years when she’d been too numb to feel? Too detached, too lost, to know what had been right in front of her? Astrid grimaced. There was nothing to be done now, nothing except to treasure what she had now. Hair secured, she bent down again and tasted the corner of their mouth, letting her hips roll, letting their groan reverberate through her core. She wanted them, she wanted them so much, she didn’t know and at this point didn’t care if she ever would know for how long she’d wanted, just that she did, and they both of them had so little time left and there seemed to be too much stored up inside, so much yearning to burst out of her and so much of Hiccup that she’d never touched, never loved, never seen, not yet. She wanted to know everything before it was too late.

She didn’t want to start finding out further on dirty tile only a foot away from her toilet, though. 

She shifted off of them, ignoring Hiccup’s cries of complaint, and slipped her hands under their armpits. They got the idea quickly and clung to her back as she heaved herself and them up, and then bent down to grab for their legs, hoisting them up in a carry.

“Oh, shit, the water’s still running.” Hiccup kicked their legs out of Astrid’s arms and she let them get down again, but kept her hands savoring the feel of them, up and down their torso, bending over to nuzzle their hair aside from their cheek, their jaw. They twisted the shower knob to the off position, and as the water began dripping to a halt, turned back around to her sheepishly, patting down their dress back over their hips from where it’d become bunched up around them. Astrid straightened at the change in attitude.

“What’s wrong?” She let her hands float off their shoulders.

“I, uh, just remembered that I wasn’t supposed to let you, uh, make out with me, or, anything like that.”

“Really? What was that about?”  _That seems… oddly specific._ She felt herself slide into “skeptical about something Hiccup is saying” mode, which was common enough to warrant its own stance. She let a hip drop and an eyebrow raise. “Gotta hear this one. Seems like that rule… got trampled. By both of us.” 

“Um, it was just… I went into this whole thing thinking… well, augh, long story short, I’m pretty sure that if the Capitol ever found out, we’d be in even bigger trouble than the average Tribute this Games.” Hiccup truly looked like they wanted to crawl under a rock. “But, I… I’ve wanted—I’ve wanted all this,” and here they gestured between them and Astrid, “for so damn long, I…” They grimaced, their face visibly blushing red through and through, which Astrid had only seen a couple times in six years. One hell of a blush. “I can’t. I can’t be with you but… even thinking about  _not_ … continuing this, or giving you up…. I…”

Astrid felt something snap inside. “Why? Why can’t you be with me? Because the Gamemakers are going to try to kill us?  _Hiccup. They already are._ ” 

They closed their eyes and dug in the heels of their hands around their eye sockets. “They can always make it worse. They can make it so that the odds are completely against us.”

She forced herself to walk out of the bathroom into the living room, pacing back and forth between the couch and the comm portal, wanting to punch something, but not wanting to crowd Hiccup again with her anger, needing to go somewhere or do something  _useful_. Knowing that there was nothing she could do. The Capitol was powerful and creative, and yeah, they could make a Tribute’s life hell in the Arena, or they could make it  _worse than hell._  Unfortunately she’d seen that before. Tributes’ lives sometimes ended horribly enough and ironically enough that everyone knew it was payback for something. Hiccup was at least right about that. The powers-that-be might not approve of two Tributes together, dating, because of what effect it might have on the audience, and in this case, they definitely wouldn’t—because Astrid had never fit the script, had dragged both herself and Hiccup through fiery death when that technically wasn’t possible. A counter-possibility would emerge to wipe them off the map, end their story. It was probably closer to certainty that they’d both be tortured in the most painful ways in the next two weeks. And then killed.

“Okay, so, say the Capitol finds out that we’ve been together. Or are together.” She looked up from her pacing as Hiccup ventured out of the bathroom. “That would mean that they find out in the next week. Could we keep this quiet for six more days?”

Hiccup made another grimace and sank into the sofa. “You’re forgetting about the Arena itself. There’s even more cameras there than in the Capitol.”

Astrid shook her head. “There’s not any guarantee that either of us would last five minutes. Any time after the buzzer is borrowed time.” She took a sideways glance at them. “What do you think we’d be doing, anyway?  _In the Arena?_  In front of the entire country on tv?” 

Hiccup sunk a little deeper into the couch. “Iunno. Just. Stuff, being together. It’s not like it’d be hard to find out though. It’d be pretty easy to guess what was going on just from the way you’ve been acting. You’re not very good at hiding your feelings.” 

Astrid blinked. “So it was that obvious?” 

They smiled a bit. “Yeah… it was, like, super obvious you were suddenly into me. Which was surprising. But maybe not surprising to everyone else. We’ve had shippers for years. Which is mostly my fault.” They twitched, their entire body following the spasm. “Oh nooooo. There’s no guarantee that your entire production team doesn’t already think that we went and had sex in that closet.” 

Astrid barked out a laugh, flinging herself next to Hiccup. The couch bounced both of them invitingly. She tilted her head towards them, studying them, soaking in the sight of them. The way their profile with that gorgeous big nose fit together with those cheekbones and lips, the way their eyes tucked in pleasingly, shaded by their brow line, how their lashes brushed their cheeks as they looked down at their hands, their long, slender fingers fiddling together… and looking at them, it felt like she could see layers and layers of them, all the way down to the scared fourteen year old who’d been enjoying wearing dresses for the first time and had somehow stood their ground against her for the sake of a dragon. They’d begun to mean something, always meant something, since that first… confrontation. And she just was starting to understand what it was.

Her heart felt so full, full to the point of breaking. Time was so short. She leaned onto her hip, draped an elbow on the top of the couch, and dangled a hand so that it caressed their cheek.

“So, since the Capitol is probably going to blow its shit no matter what, and you say that I can’t hide my feelings, what’re we going to do?”

Hiccup looked up at her out of the corner of their eye. “Well, I really want to figure out what these guys who say they want to help us have to offer. And I’ve got to get my shit together for these interviews. Like, absolutely nothing is planned yet, and my stylists are  _shit_  at doing me up. I’ve basically had to do everything myself for the past three years. Wish I could fire them. Get a new team. They fucking almost ruined my skin, y’know.”

_Way to dodge the question._ “I remember.” She leaned in closer, planted a kiss on the side of their forehead. “It’s looking so much better, though. I can tell you’ve worked hard.” And really, they glowed, now, even without the makeup. They looked so much healthier than before, like their skin had had time just to heal. 

“Yeah, well, it’d have been better if I’d never let them put bleach within ten fucking paces near me. I still have to cover up a lot to look good.” They were staring at a space somewhere in their lap, twiddling fingers nervously. 

_Oh._

“No, hon, you look fine.” She stroked their hair, lifting a few strands away from their face. “I like you when you’re made up and I like you like this. I like  _you._ ” She took a hand of theirs in hers and squeezed it. “I really like you.” Hiccup’s hand trembled in hers, but they gripped back, daring a side glance at her. Astrid smiled at the expression she saw, something soft and wondering. It made her want to give them everything. “I like you, no matter what. You’re always beautiful to me. You always have been.”

Hiccup gulped. “I, uh, thanks. Right back atcha… I mean, god, you’re really beautiful too. And you don’t even try.” They smiled back, half-grinning and half-pained. “I don’t think you’re capable of being ugly.”

“Ahah, I’m sure that’s not true.” She squeezed their hand again. “I think you’re biased. And a flatterer. And conveniently forgetting all the times I’ve been a fashion disaster.”

“Nah, I’ve been a very careful observer for six years.” They shifted closer towards her, angling themselves so that their knee was touching Astrid’s, the warmth spreading like a current between them. “You… when I first saw you, like, actually noticed you, I couldn’t help but wonder if District 7 had a patron goddess and she had come to help me win the Games.” 

She snorted.

“No, really! Like, I was fourteen, ok? But then, then you did get me through, and it just cemented it, and… no matter what you’ve gone through, you’ve always been so smart, and capable, and, and honest, and sometimes way too honest, and sometimes I didn’t want to hear what you had to say, but you were always right!” Their hand in hers gripped tighter, started bouncing along with the words pouring out. “You… you see things… like, the way they are, no bullshit, and you always want to help people if you can, and on top of that you’re just… stunning, and so strong, and scary, well… intimidating, but in a good way, like, I don’t get why people are scared of you unless it’s because they know that you’re gonna keep them in line if they’re on the wrong side—“

She couldn’t listen anymore. It was… too much, and not enough, of the truth. “Hiccup, people are scared of me for legitimate reasons.”

“Just because you’re good with an axe? Astrid, that’s, it’s bullshit, they’ve got this weird racist agenda against you and that’s not—“

“No, it’s not just the Capitol bullshit. I’m not good hiding my feelings, like you say, or controlling them, and a lot of them are frightening and awful. I’m not… good like you say I am.”

“No, but—“

“Hiccup. Listen to me. I’m a… I’ve killed people, children. I lose my temper. I  _punched_  you for no reason yesterday. I’m… so messed up. And, well, I sorta just rushed us into this and right now I feel like I might be forcing you to be with me when you don’t really want to, and… I won’t stand for it, I can’t allow myself to do that to you. Definitely not when there’s so much at stake.” Despite the trembling in her gut, she made herself say it. “So, I want to make this right, how I should have done from the beginning. I need you to be honest with me, ‘cause I’ll respect whatever answer you give. Do you want this to happen, or not?” 

They blinked, swallowed, blinked again, deliberately. Looked her in the face. She couldn’t help but quiver a little at their seriousness, maybe the most solemn she’d ever seen them.

“Yes. I want you. I want to be with you. I want this to happen.”

“Even… even if the Capitol decided to go after us? ‘Cause you’re right. They could. They could make the rest of our lives hell. They could use us to hurt each other.”

“They could. But…” Hiccup’s eyes flicked from hers down to her lips— _unfair little twerp_ , she couldn’t help thinking—before meeting her gaze again. “I’d rather spend the rest of my life with you, even if it’s just one week and the worst they can give us, because it’d still be better than… not having you with me. And if you think about it, being with you would make up for a lot of bad stuff just on its own. Like, today has already cancelled out that time when I got lost in the woods at night as a kid. ”

Something relaxed inside her, uncurling like a fern frond. “You’re the biggest flatterer I’ve ever met, but you’re sweet.”

“Well, thanks, let me add that to my resume. I’ll be needing to find a new job after this anyway.” 

“Truer words…”

They settled into silence, Hiccup edging even closer, laying their head on the crook of her shoulder that was still propped up on the couch back. Astrid let herself relax, her arm falling to rest around them, marveling at how solid and warm they were, how right it was that they were cuddling their head into the side of her chest, how good it felt to have their hand in hers, their thumb stroking lightly over her knuckles. 

She felt, rather than heard, a sharp exhale from them.

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing. Just. Damn, your rack is amazing.”  

“Uh, thanks.” She smiled and only rolled her eyes for old times’ sake before shutting them, rotating herself even closer, letting them place their head in the valley of her breasts, something that she was nervous to call  _peace_  settling into her bones. Maybe contentment. Peace seemed impossible to imagine, with everything still hanging over both of them, but she did know that she didn’t ever want to move from this spot. Not without Hiccup next to her. 

“Y’know what would be nice?” came muffled from her bosom. They’d stopped fiddling with Astrid’s fingers, their hand caressing her unscarred inner wrist instead, sending a chill through her spine.

“What?”

Hiccup lifted their head, pulled out their other arm from where it’d been resting between them and pushed against the back of the couch to lever themself up on their knees. They looked down at her with a mischievous grin that Astrid could help but laugh at, it was so cute. They tugged at the hand that they were still holding. “More kissing. So, uh, can I kiss you?”

“Great idea.” She angled her face up, overly-pursing her lips, then blew, hitting Hiccup in the bangs. “Come and get some, then.” She distinctly heard them giggle, a delightful sound she hadn’t heard in years, making multiple places in her body twinge.  _So fucking adorable._

They gingerly shuffled forward on their knees, closing the rest of the distance between them, hesitating before resting their hands on her shoulders, lightly, then smoothing down over the silk. Astrid shuddered as the inside of the silk caught on her skin, as goosebumps rose all over her body, as Hiccup’s mouth touched against her lips, soft, barely brushing, as they let their hands ghost over the double pulses in her neck, as she closed her eyes and gripped their upper arms, feeling like she might sway and fall off the couch as they enveloped her upper lip and pulled it a little in a light nip. Her lip was fire where their teeth had touched.

_Oh. Oh dear._  And they were kissing her, so softly, so deliberately, like they wanted to nibble and suck and lick every centimeter of her lips, over and over, and were slowly making their way back into her mouth, to explore her tongue, and their own tongue was so gentle, so wet, they tasted so good, and something was wrong with her balance, she felt like she was falling and she had to grab onto something, hold on because of how her head was spinning, had to reach further around them, bring them closer. It was too much, it was all she could do to try to endure the hot pulse thrumming through her and the insistent delicate pressure of their lips and how clumsy she felt, like her mouth was made of wood instead of flesh, and just as slow to react, but it also wasn’t enough. She remembered she had legs, could do something with them. It was surprising that apparently she was lying down now but she could try to plant them, pull them up closer to her for leverage, for grounding, but they fell out and away from each other—she couldn’t help gasping at how weak they felt—which just gave Hiccup more room, more space, it was a bad idea, it was a great idea, because there they went, wriggling down her body, away from her face and she could breathe, but now they were spreading the kisses down her neck and their hips were moving like  _oh god,_ her lungs couldn’t get enough breath—

A leg of hers went over the side of the couch, somehow, hitting the floor, and Hiccup stopped with their mouth, somewhere below the vicinity of a clavicle that was now aching from being kissed. 

Astrid tried to get her bearings. It was hard to get her eyes to focus, but it looked like Hiccup wasn’t wearing their dress anymore, and judging by the breeze, her own jumpsuit was unbuttoned to somewhere around her ribcage. No wait, the dress was just pushed off their shoulders. Her hands were under the knit fabric still clinging to their back, so it was probably her doing. Hiccup was looking at her with eyes lidded heavily, a sheepish grin on their face, as they stroked little circles on the bare skin of her sides around her bra. The scars they were skimming over didn’t give her more than a passing thought at the moment, unexpectedly.

“Whatdya think?” Their grin was even more lopsided than usual.

“I… I think that you’re fucking ridiculous.” Astrid thanked every star that she could get words out.

“Been practicing. Y’know, at those parties that you always tried to avoid.”

“Practicing. For what.” 

Hiccup just kept on grinning. 

“Your partners ever tell you that you’re completely unfair? Because that was unfair.”

“I asked you if I could kiss you.”

“Hah. Needs a warning label.” 

“You said yes. Is it still a yes?” They scrunched their brows together, apparently actually a bit worried.

“Let me just pray that you’re going to finish what you started.”

“Hm. Ok. So what did I start?” 

She finally smiled back, showing her teeth, poking them in the spine with two fingers. “When I get feeling back in my legs, I’m going to drive you into the ground.”

They dipped their head down, smiling into her cleavage. She brought up a hand out from under their dress and smoothed back some of their hair, which was frankly a rat’s nest, letting herself savor the smooth skin of their forehead and how it wrinkled under her hand as they closed their eyes, their breath gentle against her breastbone, and wow, how springy and soft their waves were— _God, is there anything about Hiccup that I don’t like? Can’t think of anything right now._ She grabbed a hank of it, pulling their head back up to meet her gaze. 

“Hey, you’re in trouble, ok? For making me wait this long for you.”

They scoffed, lifting an eyebrow. “Astrid, that’s totally backwards. If anyone’s been waiting, it’s me. I’ve been in love with you since the first Games—“ She released the handful of hair in surprise as the meaning, the implications, of the words sunk in. Their eyes widened, started darting to land everywhere but her face. “I, uh… that is to say, I… uhhhh when I was fourteen I thought— well and seventeen too, I. Um.” Their mouth pressed flat. They looked back at her, their whole body tensing on top of hers, gauging her reaction like she might be about to toss them off the couch. “I—I’m not. It’s a lie. I mean, yes, I like you, but— not in a weird way, I like you a normal amount—but  _love,_  oh  _God_ that-was-a-mistake—“

She finally found a reaction, words to say. “Hiccup.” They were muttering under their breath. “ _Hiccup.”_

They inhaled. Closed their eyes like they were awaiting a blow.

“Hiccup, look at me.” Astrid waited until they complied. They were staring at an area to the right of her nose, but it was something. Enough for now. She carefully placed a hand to their right cheek, keeping her fingers off the bruise. Hiccup still flinched a little. She couldn’t help fondling the bend of their cheekbone into their brow line, sighing. “I’m… I’m not really that surprised. It makes sense.” They blinked, purposefully keeping their face blank. “It’s… convenient, since… I really care about you too.” They lifted their dark eyes, narrowing them.

“That’s not fair. I used the L word.”

“Did you mean it?”

They sputtered for a moment, thinking. “I guess so. I—I don’t know. I’ve always had a huge crush on you, and now we’re finally together, and we’re gonna go into the Arena soon and everything’s so messed up, and then we were  _doing it_ or about to and, yeah. I—I’m really happy.” Their face glowed faintly with embarrassment. 

Her chest felt like it was warmed and opening under the sun. “I’m happy too. I’m really happy.”

Hiccup scowled a little, looking meditatively at a breast. “I feel kinda dumb for liking you way more than you like me. But it’s always been that way.”

“You really have a problem listening to me, don’t you.” She tried to keep it light, but the edge still crept in. “And you yourself said that it was obvious that I was suddenly into you.”

“Yeah, well, how do I know you don’t just want to jump my bones for one last yahoo before we die?”

“Are you asking me if this is just sexual?”

“No! Well, yes, a little? Like, how much of this is you and how much of this is the Games?” They winced. “Ah, hell, I sound like such a wuss. I. I… really.” They straightened up a little from their prone position, putting their weight on their hands on either side of Astrid. “Ok. Y’know what, forget it. I’m just going to enjoy whatever this is, whatever it happens to be. I can’t… there’s nothing to do about it if you don’t feel the same way. I’m still gonna work hard to get you and me out of these Games alive.”

Astrid wanted to cry, or shake them until their teeth knocked together. She made herself lie still. This fucking dork. “You’re terrible at this relationship crap.”

“Yeah, well, never really had one.”

_Explains a whole lot._

“Ok, well, I’ve had two, before our first Games, and you know what? It’s ok.” She put her hand up to keep them from interrupting her train of thought. “It’s ok if you love me. Because you’ve had time to think about it, time to get to know me, knowing that you liked me. I’ve been in love once—granted it was when I was fifteen, and I was the first one in love in that relationship, and it didn’t last long, but that’s another story. But my point is that people have different speeds. Ok? And I just realized yesterday that I wanted you. That I really liked you. Just yesterday. That’s one of the reasons why I cried my eyes out until I fell asleep. After you left.”

“You did?” They looked confused. “Where? No. You didn’t.”

“Yes, in that closet. And a janitor found me. By the time I got back to my room, I  _knew_.”

“Knew what?” Hiccup’s voice carried a smidgen of hope. She seriously wanted to punt them down a hill. The little turd. They were really going to make her say it.

Her throat was already threatening to clog up. “Knew that you were the reason why I felt like I was falling apart. Something’s different about me this time, way different than last time we were going to go into the Arena. Because if you… if anything happens to you there, I’m not going to have anything left.” She silently cursed the way her voice had turned ragged.

“But your parents?” 

“Haaaaa… it’s different. I don’t know what it really means yet. But as much as it pains me to say it, you turd, you’re the most important to me. You’re…. I want you to be mine. Safe. And I won’t let anyone else have you.” She grabbed the back of their neck, pulling them down closer to her face. She watched, waited. 

Hiccup blinked, blinked again. And again. Eyes fluttering, they finally curled their arms up to their sides, resting their head again on Astrid’s chest. “Ok. That’s a good answer.”

“Satisfied?”

“Yeah. You’re the most important too. To me.”

“Then we’re the same.”

They crawled up her body a bit closer, careful not to jab with elbows. She let her hands skim over their back as they moved forward until their head was crooked into her shoulder, and she tucked her chin against their neck. They’d comforted each other as mere kids this way, countless times, sitting up or leaning against a wall. It seemed more, somehow, this time. Hiccup’s full body weight, as slight as it was in comparison to hers, was completely relaxed against her, holding her down, keeping her here and alive. 

The small hairs on her skin stirred by Hiccup’s breathing tickled her. She wrapped her arms tighter. There was no telling how long they could do this, could have each other.

Hiccup planted a small kiss against her. Whispered, “Thanks.”

Astrid breathed deeply, in and out. “You’re always welcome.”

 


End file.
